Uconn vs SJU
- Thread starter Seton75
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Seton hall did something uconn isn't doing.
Kick the johnnies butt in the first half..
Kick the johnnies butt in the first half..
Fantastic game. Reminds me of the classic 80' games. Uconn a good villian, in a good way.
Fun game, hell of a win for SJU.
It's hard not to think about the missed opportunity a few weeks back, but if the Johnnies keep rolling and SHU can pull it out on senior night...
It's hard not to think about the missed opportunity a few weeks back, but if the Johnnies keep rolling and SHU can pull it out on senior night...
LOL isn't that true for every other player, basically? I mean Budd Clark NEVER commits a foul if you judge his reactions and is always fouled when he falls back on that patented mid-range fadeaway he loves.
That game shows while Val Ackerman needs to make sure Hurley at Uconn and Pitino at SJU are perpetually happy with the state of the Big East. You might not find another regular season game this year in college basketball that has the type of juice and atmosphere that was at MSG tonight.
MSU Illinois today is every bit the equal..sometimes we are too BE blind
Nah, you’re not going to equal or outdo a game in MSG on Friday night with nothing else going on. That’s a premier as it gets
I was thinking that watching the game: We're talking about a handful of plays that may've had Seton Hall beating both St. John's and Connecticut. And what a season we'd be talking about. But our offense is just way too inept to do it, that's why we're 6-6 and not something elite like 9-3 with key wins.
Like any business, you need to keep the big accounts that fund the operation happy, healthy, and engaged. Those two and Villanova now with Willard are in good shape. She needs to turn her attention to whatever is going on with the other programs that have the resources but are fledging. We need them to bounce back and stop tanking. The BE needs to be a legit 5-bid league perennially and these other programs can't be dragging the league down. We were there in 2023 and 2025, but looks only 3 in 2024 and again in 2026. NG.
Creighton is a one-off season IMO, but if McDermott is retiring, that's a big deal. Seton Hall, Butler, and DePaul are always going to be your accounts that may have some potential and upside, but are smaller and challenged and need more attention.
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The SJU 3-big lineup is a terror. Tuned their season around once Pitino finally figured it out and stopped giving minutes to the try-hards. A month ago Dillon Mitchell was playing 15 mins a game off the bench. He’s their second best player and one of the 10 best players in the conference. Maybe one of the 5 best. Awful coaching.
he and darling had good games. darling stripped budd to helped seal their win against us. In the sj games I have watched since, he has done it again.Silas Demary should be renamed Serious Disaster.
surprised zuby outplayed reed.
Gus has lost his fastball. still talks a good game but misses too many plays.
Good game
Demaray was so good until the end. Couldn’t hit a foul shot either.
Putting aside weaker teams or foul trouble, didn’t Mitchell play significant minutes in the non-conference when they played other high majors?
St johns half court defense was tough and they made and shot just enough from 3...uconn also weak in ft conversions
He was off the bench basically the whole year until about a month ago. Started off playing low to mid 20s and then explicitly saw his minutes reduced in favor of Rick’s practice player flavor of the week (Ayo, Leftopilis, Darling) and the chucker guards.
You piqued my interest because while it is customary for any coach with loads of new players to spend time figuring out rotations, etc, I usually find it difficult to fathom that most capable high major coaches -- forget about one of the best in the history of the sport -- would miss something so obvious.
SJU has 5 losses. What has defined the narrative about them before last night was the OOC, and specifically the 4 losses they had (tight ones with Bama and Iowa State, and the AUB/KY games where they were winning at half and got crushed in the second half).
In those 4 games, Mitchell played 30 minutes per game. No clue if the started or what the combinations were, but 30 minutes is 30 minutes.
Maybe this is one of those things were the narrative out there is a bit overblown and there are more like 10 different reasons as to why the team is playing better.
Mitchell’s usage and the combos is exactly what we talk about with some of our guys and switching it up. Darling has also become a huge cog for them. Pitino loves those types.
UConn had had issues fouling all year long. They’re like us with that. Danny has often spoke about needing “fouling rehab”. They also have been pretty bad with turnovers.
Seton Hall is 330th in FTA:FGA. Connecticut is 314th.
UConn had had issues fouling all year long. They’re like us with that. Danny has often spoke about needing “fouling rehab”. They also have been pretty bad with turnovers.
Seton Hall is 330th in FTA:FGA. Connecticut is 314th.
Is it any coincence that these two schools are assumed to have spent the most money of any Big East teams?
Money talks more than ever in college sports.
Agreed - no coincidence. That's true throughout the entire sport. It was also true to some extent before NIL, when the schools with the most "resources" always got the top players.
That said, it is more than $$$. Plenty of schools spend significant $$ but aren't good or don't win at these levels. The two head coaches have won everywhere they've been, at every level. No one should discount that, either.
St John’s is 5.4 points per 100 possessions better on offense and 4.8 points per 100 possessions better on defense with Mitchell on the floor. He’s top 5 in the BE for both categories (offensive and defensive box plus minus). Unless there was something going on behind the scenes, it was nothing short of coaching malpractice to give him D Mitch than 30+ mins.
Everything you said makes sense. But if he played 30 minutes per game over the 4 OOC losses that everyone seems to focus on, I don’t see how one can point to that singular reason as being why they are playing better. More likely, I think there are a multitude of reasons, probably some the average basketball observer aren’t even privy to.
Still a level above them and one game changes nothing. UCONN beat Illinois, Florida, Kansas and BYU in the non-conference. Lost a close one to AZ without Reed and Mullins and otherwise has run through everyone else. Of course UConn is a better team. SJU is good and has an absolute maestro as a HC, but UConn is at a different level.
Despite playing 30 minutes in those 4 games, he was a non-factor in 3 of them. His level of play is night and day now and that definitely could be the fact of getting comfortable and in rhythm. His usage trend looks like Pitino trying to get the message to him in whatever it took to get into flow.
They are an absolute beast with Mitchell-Hopkins-Ejiofor. And now they're getting competent guard play from Darling but their guards still wig me out a bit. They have been playing better than Connecticut lately, IMO, but I'd rather go into the NCAAT with Connecticut's team.